“A Prairie Home Companion” host Garrison Keillor thinks poetry doesn’t need to be as stuffy as its reputation suggests.

Allen Ginsberg was arguably the most famous poet of the 20th century — and one of the most insufferable, according to Garrison Keillor.

“Ginsburg believed ‘first thought, best thought,’ and it makes his stuff unreadable,” said Keillor, the longtime host of the public radio variety show “A Prairie Home Companion.” “I was looking through this enormous concrete block of a book of his collected poems that Harper put out and thinking that it just absolutely defeated the reader on every page.”

Keillor, as you might imagine, goes for the more lyrical, humorous stuff, which he feels can be every bit as illuminating as the “serious” poetry vaunted by critics and poetry journals.

To quantify his achievements would be futile — any such list would be, by nature, less than comprehensive — because poetry and its reason are unquantifiable. But they matter. “If poetry and the arts do anything,” he said, “they can fortify your inner life, your inwardness,” Heaney said in 2009.

Show me a college literature syllabus without Heaney, and I’ll show you an incomplete education. A contemporary reader who’s never spent time with his work is malnourished.Read more…

The PEN/Faulkner foundation announced its annual Literary Award winners Wednesday. The organization bestows almost $150,000 each year to “honor the sustained careers of writers who are distinguished in their fields, raising awareness for a diverse array of outstanding books,” says PEN president Peter Godwin.

Among this year’s winners: Katherine Boo for her bestselling look at life in Mumbai, “Behind the Beautiful Forevers,” Larry Kramer for his body of work as a playwright (which includes “The Normal Heart”), and Frank Deford for his “exceptional contribution” to sports writing.

Poems entered can be of any length, style or mood, but they must be inspired by agriculture, gardening, food and/or farms. So grow your own verses and submit them by July 25. The judging panel is made up of local literary professionals.

Entries have to be previously unpublished, and they can’t have won any awards before. So bring your virgin verse.

Two entry categories: Youth (ages 10-17) and Adult (18 and up). Finalists will be notified by email on August 5 and winners announced on August 9 at the Denver County Fair. Winning poems will be on display at the fair through August 11, and all finalists will be invited to the Denver County Fair Poetry Performance on Sunday, August 11.

Winner: “The Orphan Master’s Son” by Adam Johnson: “an exquisitely crafted novel that carries the reader on an adventuresome journey into the depths of totalitarian North Korea and into the most intimate spaces of the human heart.”

Finalists: “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank,” by Nathan Englander and “The Snow Child,” by Eowyn Ivey.